A350-900 Type Certification milestone

Great milestone today 30/September/2014. A350-900 TYPE CERTIFICATION.

The A350-900 has received Type Certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) on 30/September/2014. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification will follow shortly.

Source: Airbus

The EASA A350-900 Type Certificate was signed by EASA’s Executive Director, Patrick Ky. The document was handed over to Airbus’ Executive Vice President Engineering, Charles Champion and Airbus’ A350 XWB Chief Engineer, Gordon McConnell.

“Receiving the A350-900 Type Certification from EASA is a great achievement for Airbus and for all our partners who have contributed to designing, building and certificating this fantastic, new generation aircraft. The A350-900 is now ready to fly from the nest and be enjoyed by airlines and passengers,” said Fabrice Brégier, Airbus President and CEO.

“The A350 XWB manufacturing program has also been innovative and ambitious, aiming for a fully mature aircraft at entry into service and this is what we are proud to be delivering to our first A350 XWB customer, Qatar Airways, before the end of the year. Our fleet of five test aircraft completed the certification campaign, on time, cost and quality. Accumulating more than 2,600 flight test hours, we created and successfully achieved one of the industry’s most thorough and efficient test programmes ever developed for a jetliner,” said Fabrice Brégier, Airbus President and CEO.

http://easa.europa.eu/system/files/dfu/EASA_TCDS_A_151_Issue-01.pdf

The A350-900 Type Certification comes after successfully finishing a stringent program of certification trials which has taken its airframe and systems during 15 month flight test campaign well beyond their design limits to ensure all airworthiness criteria are fully met.

The European Aviation Safety Agency has certified the aircraft with 2 maximum take-off weight variants: a basic 268t and a higher 275t option (intended to mitigate the A350’s airframe weight which is around 3t above Airbus’s target specification).

  Source: Airbus

Chief engineer Gordon McConnell said the A350 has completed extended twin-engined operations (ETOPS) testing and that Airbus is waiting for the agencies to confirm the ETOPS limits to be placed on the aircraft. “We’re not going to predict what the authorities are going to grant us,” said McConnell. “We’ll have ETOPS clearance before we go into service.”

Based on the article “EASA certifies A350-900” published in Flight Global.

Source: Airbus

Congratulations to all involved in the A350 Development phase. Good Job!

A350 Formation Flight air to air pictures. And videos

Click here to watch the official video

Click here to watch the video1.

Click here to watch.the video2.

All pictures are © Airbus

A350 Formation Flight push back pictures

All pictures are © Airbus

A350 Formation Flight. Preparation pictures.

All pictures are © Airbus

A350 Formation Flight prior to Type Certification

All 5 aircraft in the Airbus A350-900 test fleet have taken part in a formation flight, ahead of certification of the type.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/49477547@N04/15387192781/lightbox/

Using the callsign ‘Carbon’, the aircraft departed Toulouse’s runway 14R at about 10:30, led by the first cabin-fitted airframe MSN2.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/46799619@N04/15367351976/lightbox/

The formation subsequently joined up and performed several east-west flights parallel to the Pyrenees mountain range.

http://twitter.com/cmespoulede

https://www.flickr.com/photos/47086222@N03/15392978792/lightbox/

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Airbus/Airbus-A350-941/2510572/L/

Based on the article "A350s fly in formation ahead of certification" published in FlightGlobal.

Airbus not convinced on the real market demand for a 400-seat A350-1100.

Airbus COO-Customers John Leahy said he is not convinced Airbus may have to stretch the A350 further beyond the -1000 version. “It is not obvious to me that we need 35 more seats,” Leahy said in an interview at the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading (ISTAT) Europe conference in Istanbul.

Source: © Airbus

Leahy claims that Boeing’s main motivation to stretch the Boeing 777-9X—compared with the Boeing 777-300ER—was to reduce unit costs rather than real market demand for a 400-seater.

He also argues that the -1000 will have a 15% trip cost advantage over the -9X. “I don’t know that I want to give that up. The added seats will be marginal,” he said, referring to the low fares for which he believes the capacity can be sold. “I think we might be better off staying where we are.”

Source: © Airbus

Some observers have argued that Airbus would have to build a larger version of the A350 to be able to compete with the largest Boeing twin.

Based on the article “Airbus To Look At Higher A350 Rates” published in Aviation Week

Airbus COO-Customers says A350 ramp-up is too conservative.

Leahy is more concerned that Airbus may not deliver as many A350s as the potential demand for the aircraft, because of its conservative production ramp-up. “We are being prudent, but it bothers me,” he said. However, he indicated that Airbus might soon decide to produce at higher rates. “I believe this will be decided sometime next year,” he said.

Source: © Airbus

Airbus is currently moving from a rate of two to three per month, a move it plans to complete by year-end. By the end of 2015, Airbus plans to build 5 aircraft/month, but output will be expanded to 10 aircraft/month by 2018.

Source: © Airbus

Based on the article “Airbus To Look At Higher A350 Rates” published in Aviation Week